Calls that are spam of the phone

Published 11:52 pm, Saturday, August 3, 2013

"Are your carpets dirty?" "Paying too much on your home mortgage?" "Let us help you lower the interest rate on your credit cards!"

Chances are, one of these annoying messages — or something similar — has hit your phone recently. Even if you have caller ID to help block unwanted calls, they still sneak through.

Sometimes it's an automated, recorded "robocall." Other times it's a persistent telemarketer who just won't take "No" for an answer.

"It's a constant barrage. It drives me nuts," said Fair Oaks, Calif., resident Dot Boyd, who said she and her husband typically get three to five unwanted sales calls a week. "They're only trying to do their job, but it's so incessant, said Boyd, who usually either ignores the message or just hangs up.

Like millions of other frustrated consumers, the couple recently relisted their home phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry.

Created 10 years ago by the Federal Trade Commission in response to consumer complaints, the registry lets consumers put their personal phone numbers on a no-call list that all telemarketers must abide by — or face stiff fines.

In the past decade, more than 221 million phone numbers were added by consumers to the registry, which can stop "most, but not all" unwanted calls, according to the FTC.

The "do not call" list is just one of many tools used by FTC enforcers to pursue the persistent problem of illegal telemarketers and robocallers.

Lawsuits and million-dollar penalties are another. In recent weeks, the FTC has slapped beefy fines on several companies accused of bombarding consumers with calls.

In late June, the FTC handed out its biggest civil penalty ever — $7.5 million — for do-not-call violations on Mortgage Investors Corp., one of the nation's leading refinancers of military veterans' home loans.

Those cases are among more than 100 lawsuits filed against illegal telemarketers in the past decade, including well-known companies such as Dish Network and DirecTV. So far, the FTC says it's handed out more than $126 million in civil penalties and collected $741 million in takebacks from companies and restitution to victims. It's also shut down companies responsible for "billions" of illegal robocalls.

So why do so many of us still get all those irritating calls?

Blame it on technology. Telemarketers once had to employ callers who dialed households by hand. Today, all that's needed is a phone-and-Internet connection to spew out thousands of calls a minute.

Software also allows telemarketers to hide their identity by "spoofing" or faking the caller ID that shows up on a consumer's phone.

In general, the FTC recommends that consumers avoid responding to a robocall, even when asked to press a number that will remove you from the company's marketing list. The only exception is when you ask a live telemarketer to remove you from the business or charity's phone list.

The best response: Hang up.

"We encourage people to just hang up the phone. The last thing you want to do is get added to a list of people likely to engage with scammers," said the FTC's Daffan.